Some writers on the HOA message board erroneously claimed that the HOA has had “zero” assessments. This is untrue.
There was an assessment to beautify the clubhouse a number of years ago, and then in late 2019 the Board assessed another $800 per home to replenish the reserves. The $800 assessment per home was due in two $400 installments in 2020.
Now let’s get to the highlights.
C. New Board Policy That Effectively Disenfranchises You, The Members:
At the Board meeting, Deborah distributed to the Board members a preprinted paper setting forth new Board procedures which Arthur and Sue saw for the first time at the meeting. Jeff added this item to the agenda (contrary to the 48-hour notice rule).
This was sprung on Arthur without prior notice but was clearly prepared in advance. It is also clear that a majority of the Board was well aware of it before it was shown to Arthur. How utterly disrespectful to have done that, but typical. The sole purpose of this new procedure is to neutralize Arthur and by extension, all of you. Kindly allow me to explain.
It gives the majority veto power over whether an item will be placed on the agenda, disallows directors to add their agenda items to the agenda as they had done for the last two years, and also disallows anyone but the secretary, president, and property manager to have control over the agenda items.
Don’t be fooled: this shuts down your voice and disenfranchises you through what is supposed to be seven independent and equal board members. They have taken away each board member’s right to place important items on the agenda.
What the majority has done is create a de facto four or five member Board and they now get to illegally vote in advance to kill an agenda item by another director so that it never gets on the agenda to begin with, and so that the community doesn’t benefit from even hearing about it or sharing their thoughts about it.
So when a member of the community who wants to be heard about a valid situation that is in disagreement with the de facto ruling group, and goes to another board member to be heard, that Board member is shut down and cannot fulfill his fiduciary duty to the community.
It is also illegal under statute 720.303, subsections (2)(a) and (3) which prohibits secret voting except for the choosing of officers. What they are doing now is voting in advance and in secret to reject an equal board member’s agenda item. That’s a secret vote and it’s completely illegal.
No board member or members has or have veto power over another equal board member, and no matter what euphemisms one uses, it is still an illegal vote.
They have also declared that if another Board member has an agenda item that they will allow to be placed on the agenda, they can re-assign it to another director at will under the guise of it being more appropriate for that other director’s area of expertise.
The real reason is to take credit for it and to squeeze out Arthur from either including or presenting his agenda items.
This is consistent with what they did when they assigned Liaisons to various committees. Clearly Sue was the most qualified for Rules & Regulations and was the liaison previously and prior to her ascension to the Board was its Chairperson for years. They removed her and replaced her with a less qualified and less experienced Board member, Pat.
So now if there is an agenda item Sue wishes to raise that concerns Rules & Regs, under this new policy, if they agree to put it on the agenda, they will likely give it to Pat to present. Also, Pat’s presentation may very well be different from what Sue intended.
The same thing happened with the Liaisons for the ARB and Landscaping, where clearly Arthur is most qualified as he is a master artisan who designed many facets of prior homes and our current home here in Cascade Lakes.
Arthur has done landscaping design, horticulture, the design, implementation, and construction of outdoor home amenities, plumbing, electrical, demolition, beam and column, irrigation, roofing, window to door alteration, fountain construction, and complete backyard and front yard design, to name a few things.
They deliberately gave those Liaisons to Harvey, who has no experience in either of those areas. His expertise is elsewhere, such as computer technology and emergency medical procedures, which have nothing to do with ARB or landscaping. So how is this putting the community first?
If Arthur has an agenda item involving ARB or Landscaping, it will likely be given to Harvey to present and again, the presentation will lose its punch because the presenter is less qualified to make the presentation.
These decisions will be made behind the scenes via illegal vote. This harms the entire community for obvious reasons. So what happened to doing things for the best interest of the community and what happened to the fiduciary obligations you all are owed?
This was an add-on at the meeting that apparently was known to all Board members except for Arthur. It was never noticed to the community or to an equal Board member, but apparently the rest of the Board knew about it well in advance of the meeting. Sue reports she was aware that they were going to institute some policy changes.
To be clear, here is what was created: a new policy whereby the majority of the board gets to decide among themselves if another equal board member’s agenda item will be placed on the agenda or not, i.e., giving themselves veto power so it never hits the agenda.
Also, if they want it on the agenda, they can re-assign it to another board member on whim under the guise of giving it to a board member who is “better suited to present it,” and they will determine that, but that is really just code speak for further silencing Arthur (and to a lesser extent, Sue).
It bears repeating that what the majority has done is create a de facto four or five member Board which now gets to illegally vote in advance in secret to kill an agenda item by another director so that it never gets on the agenda to begin with, and so that the community doesn’t benefit from even hearing about it.
So when a member of the community who wants to be heard about a valid situation that is in disagreement with the de facto ruling group, and goes to another board member to be heard, that Board member is shut down and cannot fulfill his fiduciary duty to the community.
This policy stifles debate and the free flow of ideas. These board members can deny it’s a vote until the cows come home, but it is a vote to determine in advance the outcome of an intended agenda item and based on that vote, to kill it in advance so that it never sees the light of day. To misquote Shakespeare, a vote by any other name is still a vote.
Arthur noted that add-ons do not give the community the 48-hour notice the statute requires so that the community can meaningfully prepare for residents’ input.
Sue was concerned and stated, “are we sacrificing the free exchange of ideas for the sake of expediency…” She asked for a month’s postponement stating that “this is the first time I’ve actually seen anything in writing.”
Richard said, “it’s been in discussion for months.” Really? By whom? Arthur reports no such discussion that he is aware of. This is an example of the behind-the-scenes secrecy that some Board members are regularly engaging in, to the exclusion of other equal Board members.
The motion passed 5-1-1 with Arthur voting no and Sue abstaining. There was no explanation given for Sue’s decision to abstain.
This is a dictatorial communist-style oligarchy/government structure. It is not a free-flowing exchange of ideas among seven equal board members.
And that’s why you’ll likely never see an agenda item by Arthur again, and they’ve disenfranchised you, the members, by depriving you of your representation on the Board by this independent equal Board member.
They did this because they are desperate to seize as much voice away from Arthur as possible. They are singularly laser-focused on shutting him down because they feel their abusive power grabs are threatened.
They want total power and control, and anyone who gets in their way needs to be neutralized. That’s all this is about, and they will try and achieve this by any means possible, and that includes rule breaking.
They did this to neutralize his equal and independent voice which is your voice. They did this because they are completely and totally threatened by him, the director whose motto is and has always been “honesty, openness, and transparency” and “follow the rules.”
This effectively means anything Arthur submits will not be placed on the agenda or it will be given to another board member to present so that they take the credit for it.
Also, don’t be surprised that from this point forward, the only items on the agenda will be those already voted on by the majority in secret.
In addition, they will put whatever add-ons at the meeting they want so that the disenfranchised board members (representing you) and the HOA membership at large has no notice whatsoever and no ability to prepare for discussion or resident input sessions.
They do not want criticism or debate, plain and simple. Stifling discussion and debate is a dangerous game to play and ultimately may prove to be unsustainable.
In fact, under these new policies, they don’t believe they need to give you notice of anything other than the fact that they’re having a meeting because they can pre-determine what will be on the agenda at the last moment, secretly agree/vote on what they want, and then spring it on other Board members and you at the meeting as “add-ons” to the agenda.
That’s exactly what happened in this meeting with this new Board policy, so that’s a good indication of how they operate and how they intend to operate going forward.
Any attorney or law firm who approved this procedure in my opinion needs to be terminated; perhaps the next Board will be comprised of individuals who understand the need for new counsel.
Welcome to your own disenfranchisement. Are you all ok with this? If this is something you won’t tolerate, vote them out at election time.
The good news is that now you’re fully aware of it, because they can never silence our voices out here in the beautiful land-of-the-free, home-of-the-brave internet!
One thing they will never do: they will never neutralize this website. We are free birds out here and will continue to be honest, open, and transparent with you, as always.
This is why it is important to have candidates for the next election that respect and follow the rules, and who recognize that all Board members are inherently equal, and on everything, not just some things.
Meanwhile, if you want change so as to make things right, all interested candidates for the March Board elections should contact me so we can confidentially discuss your candidacy.
Now is the perfect time to step up to the plate when there are three vulnerable incumbents up for reelection. It’s a rare and potent opportunity. Don’t let it pass you by. It’s time to take back your community. Your silence permits this type of abuse. So decide now what you want: more of the same abuses or fairness for all.
D. Jeff’s Opening Remarks: Jeff asked everyone to stand after the pledge for a moment of silence in memory of past HOA president, Paul Friedlander, who recently passed away. I want to thank Jeff for doing this.
There is also a new policy for resident input sessions. You must sign up in advance or raise your hand on Zoom when you log in or you will not be recognized.
F. Minutes: The Minutes for the July 20, 2022 meeting were discussed. Harvey wanted to strike my name from the record where it said with respect to the FSR contract, “…the attorney will review it first, along with questions raised by Sue, Vicki, and Arthur…”
Arthur said, “it actually happened so how can you strike it from the record?” The words “non-Board member” were then added before my name.
Old Business:
G. FSR Contract: This is the management company’s contract. Sue stated that the lawyer addressed all of the suggestions and changes submitted by Sue, Arthur, and me. The Board voted unanimously to accept the contract.
H. Website User Agreement: they finally woke up and realized that what I was saying for weeks was true, that the new version of the HOA website terms of service was incorrect because it wrongly gave the webmasters authority to issue violations.
Arthur: “At last month’s meeting, I pointed out the discrepancy, so thank you, Pat, for fixing that.”
This has now been fixed.
I. Best Board Practices: Sue brought a motion to form an ad hoc committee to explore best board practices.
Arthur suggested that she, he, and Jeff be on the ad hoc committee because he and Jeff worked well together on revising the website user agreement which Arthur presented and which the Board passed a couple of months ago.
The concept is laudatory, but there are some areas which are not doable and there really isn’t a viable enforcement mechanism as Harvey correctly pointed out, although there were some terrific parts to it.
It failed 3-4 with Sue, Arthur, and Bob voting for it and the rest voting against it.
This is another example of an agenda item that likely would never have made the agenda for discussion based on the new Board policies.
J. Voting Certificates: Arthur wanted to make sure everyone understands that if a Unit has a valid voting certificate on file, it is not invalid just because a new one is being circulated for owners to sign. He also wanted an audit to determine which Units are lacking valid voting certificates.
Arthur: “Voting Certificates: Correction to Instructions, Audit, Report
I move to:
a. correct the voting certificate instruction page to delete the sentence that states that current voting certificates on file will be considered invalid,
b. to instruct the property manager’s office to conduct an audit on all present voting certificates and title documents to verify if they need to be updated or they are fine as is, and
c. provide the entire Board with a list of the properties with presumably defective voting certificates.
Our governing documents, page 3-1, Suction 1, Subsection C states at the end: “Such certificate shall be valid until revoked or superseded by a subsequent certificate, or until a change occurs in the ownership of the Unit or Lot.” This means valid ones on file are still valid.
With regard to the Instruction page that accompanies the new voting certificate, the sentence stating that the current certificates on file are automatically invalid needs to be deleted and resent to the community.
The office should do an audit on all present voting certificates and title documents to verify if they need to be updated or if they are fine as is, and then provide the entire Board with a list of presumably defective voting certificates.”
Here’s how the vote went down: 1-5-1 with Arthur voting for it, Sue abstaining, and the rest voting against it, so it failed.
Richard felt it was too much work, Pat said it was impractical, Harvey suggested they just say the new ones supersede the old ones (which is completely contrary to our governing documents which Arthur had just quoted from above), and Sue thought it was a good idea but premature (how so? The next election is only seven months away).
The property manager said she would check property records if someone claimed their original certificate is still valid but didn’t commit to counting it at election time. Jeff said he completely agreed, but his comment was not clearly directed to anyone specifically.
This is another example of an agenda item which would likely never have made the agenda. Do you see how dangerous this new policy is? Here is one Board member asking everyone to simply follow the rules and our own governing documents, and they’re shooting it down. And rest assured, they would reject it as an agenda item to begin with starting now.
K. Ballot Preservation:
Arthur: “Ballot Preservation
I move that we start following our own governing documents, Section V, Subsections E, F, and G on pages 3-4 and 3-5, that ballots are only sent to the one individual per household who is entitled to vote, and when ballots come in during an election or any community vote, the HOA is to retain all outer ballot envelopes and follow the procedures spelled out in our governing documents, including but not limited to the following:
Section E states that the outer envelope should only be sent to the one qualified voter per Unit.
Section F, last sentence reads: “Envelopes containing ballots received by the Association shall be retained and collected by the Association and shall not be opened until the time of the election, after nominations are closed, and after a motion is approved by a floor vote at the annual meeting to close the polls.”
Section G provides for additional blank ballots for voting at the meeting, that a committee shall be appointed by motion and floor vote and the signatures and unit identifications on the outer envelopes shall be checked against the list of qualified voters.
There are additional instructions stated in this section. It also states that in the presence of the owners the inner envelopes shall be removed from the outer envelopes and placed in a receptacle. Any inner envelope with more than one ballot shall be disregarded. All ballots shall be counted in the presence of the owners.
This means you need to determine in advance who that individual is and only send the notice and the ballot to that individual: one per household. This is what our governing documents say.
This process will ensure that if there is a challenge to the results, the process can be properly audited, and the evidence will be preserved. Otherwise, you may face a court challenge which the HOA may very well lose for violating its own rules and for failing to preserve the evidence as required.”
Sue said, “This is consistent with our documents,” Harvey said it’s “the process we’re using now” (no, not exactly, Harvey), Jeff said, “We don’t do the first item,” and Deborah said, “we don’t discard the envelopes at all.”
Then the vote was taken. Jeff asked for those in favor of Arthur’s motion and Arthur, Sue and Pat raised their hands. Jeff was clearly shocked that Pat raised her hand and said, “I can’t vote for this.” (He didn’t say why not.) Voting against it were Jeff, Harvey, Richard, and Bob. So it failed.
Here is another example of an agenda item that would never see the light of day because it would be killed secretly before the publication of the agenda under the new Board policies. How do you all feel about that?
(Separately but on this issue, they noticed that the By-Laws were inconsistent with the controlling Covenants, so they then voted to amend the By-Laws to be consistent with the Covenants.)
L. Reconsideration of Electronic Voting: Harvey once again brought this up; he sought an ad hoc committee to explore e-voting for the community.
Lots of people don’t like this. How is this going to be monitored? How do you know who “clicks” from their home computers? What if there is a glitch in the system?
Arthur said it was premature, Pat said, “I agree with Arthur, maybe the time isn’t yet, maybe in the future” and she was also concerned with potential glitches in the system. Richard said, “I’m in agreement with Pat and Arthur on this…”
Jeff asked if Harvey wanted to take back his motion; Harvey refused. The vote was 2-5, with Harvey and Jeff voting for it and the rest of the Board voting against it. So it was resoundingly defeated.
Now this is another good example of what disenfranchisement would look like under the new Board policies if Arthur raised this issue. They would have voted in advance that this was a non-starter and going to fail, and not allowed it on the agenda for any discussion among the Board or input from the owners.
So again, don’t be surprised if from this point forward, the only items on the agenda will be those already voted on by the majority in secret.
New Business In Addition to the New Board Policies Discussed Above:
M. Repairs and Maintenance: motions for repairs to sidewalks and an air conditioner due to water damage, and for heater maintenance were all unanimously approved.
Sod for Cascade Lakes Boulevard (through Palm Beach Broward Landscaping) was approved 6-0-1 with Arthur abstaining due to the lack of the mandatory 48-hour notice to the community so that residents could provide meaningful input before the vote.
N. Contracts: Janitorial Contract, Sports Director’s Contract, and caterer for New Year’s Eve contract were all unanimously approved. All of these contracts are open for inspection.
O. Website Message Board Violations: two separate HOA message board posts (from two different people) were removed by the webmasters and referred to the Board for discipline. The Board voted unanimously to impose a penalty and to ding both with a first violation warning notice.
The violation issues should have been done separately because they were posts by different residents, different violation sections of the user agreement, different subject matters, different days, different topics, and different offenses.
Lumping them together was wrong in my opinion. It gives the impression that the Board didn’t do its due diligence even if it did.
One was for an improper link to a website that promotes propaganda and the other was for personal attacks on two Board members. Both were very obvious violations and as soon as I saw them, I knew they were very problematic.
Neither of the two message board posters chose to speak at the First Residents’ Input Session in defense of their posts or to argue against the imposition of the penalty, which they certainly had the right to do.
Thanks to my efforts and Arthur’s efforts, the process is now done properly. You have rights and remedies; we didn’t back in 2019, when the Board was flagrantly violating the statute. So yes, we’re taking a victory lap.
P. Second Residents’ Input Session (highlights only):
1. Mark Goodman: kudos to Mark Goodman for his comments, which were right on the money. He said, “if you add a new item on the agenda, consider open[ing] up the input session to the community so you get our feelings.”
This is exactly what Arthur has been concerned about: when you don’t give the residents the required 48-hour notice, you deprive them of their right to research, prepare, and speak on the matter and maybe you might learn a thing or two that would impact your vote.
So thank you, Mark Goodman, for expressing the exact point that Arthur has been making to no avail. This is why the statute requires 48-hour notice and why Arthur advised me that he will not vote for an add-on agenda item that was not noticed to the community. They won’t follow the rules, but he will.
Mark also suggested raising the temperature in the clubhouse during off hours to save money on the electric bills, and that’s an excellent suggestion which we wholeheartedly support.
Thank you to Mark Goodman for his important remarks.
2. Another resident asked if a member could give a proxy vote to another, and the answer given to her was “yes.”
However, I believe that answer was incomplete and lacking an important proviso. Here is my caveat: it will only be considered valid if it is properly worded and properly executed, so be careful.
Q. The meeting was adjourned at 10:58am.
R. Conclusion:
To all of our wonderful neighbors and readers, thank you again for your unwavering support!
Your faithful scribe,Vicki Roberts
Hyperlink To Happiness:
August 4, 2022 CL-Update entitled, “Failed Propaganda Felled By The Facts.”
